It's been a long time since the last update, but not much has been going on weather wise... Hopefully everyone had a great thanksgiving, and if you live in parts of PA or even some of the big cities and suburbs, I hope you enjoyed the touch of snow during your thanksgiving. Finally it looks like our winter season will begin and I will get to update regularly as things become very active.
So here's the plan for the week of weather and how everything is going to play out... A developing storm is currently taking place in the middle portion of our country associated with a cold front... That should get cranking pretty quickly and will become quite a storm in the days to come... My current thinking is that the 540 line, or the 32 degree temperature line, will be far enough into the storm system that there will be a swath of snow on the back side... So areas like PA and into the Appalachians will probably see at the minimum some snow showers toward the back end of the storm, and likely even some small accumulations most likely in the 1-3 inch range... Everyone else will get a good heavy batch of rain and wind out of this one... Now once the storm is out of here the freezing air will seep in from Canada hopefully setting up the winter... Yes that is right; the storm this week seems to be the one that will keep the cold air around for the remainder of the season... This cold air will also set the stage for a potential storm.
Now there are multiple possibilities here... One, which is looking less and less likely, is that this storm becomes strong enough to have the southern branch of it become a separate storm once reaching the Atlantic seaboard... Then the models show it gaining rapid strength over the warm waters and swirling back at the east coast early next week, with what has the potential to be a fairly substantial snowstorm from NYC to Bangor... Now since this would be a rare event, we're going to put the idea aside from now... My current forecast is that instead we would get some kind of storm going, but it would back in a couple of flurries and snow showers; kind of like a taste of what is to come...
Another option which isn't so favorable either, is that we see a clipper system come down dropping some snow, and it gains enough strength once hitting the eastern seaboard to blow up and become a real storm, probably dropping a good dose of snow for all the major cities
Third option, which i hope doesn't happen, is the storm that branched off from the front curves slowly to the east coast and blocks out the clipper from reaching us, in a fashion so that no one really gets any snow.
Fourth option could be these two storms combine in such a way to have a real block buster snowstorm and have one of the largest snows of the season with snow from the major cities and coastal areas all the way inland... (I HOPE THIS HAPPENS)
And finally if none of this happens, or even if this does happen, we see a big storm developing for the second weekend in December where we could have a classic nor'easter of snowstorm
So a lot on the table here!!!! I think it's safe to say we can start getting excited for the winter season!!!! Now of all be to get me disappointed about the weather... IT'S JOE BASTARDI!!!!! Joe is always the one who even when all hope is lost in the models, he finds a way where we can still get a major storm, and lots of the time he ends up being correct!!!! His current forecast is between now and Christmas we should have a lots of cold and snow... BUT... afterwards toward January... NOTHING!!!! well not nothing, but either normal or below snowfall... He used the words "not much of a winter" !!!!!! So I'm just praying that doesn't happen, because i need the cold and snow to blog about and look forward to!!!! Unfortunately I can't say that he's wrong because he has some pretty far out forecasting models that I don't have, so he's more accurate than me with the long range stuff... That should be it for now... Keep checking back as these storms get closer and as winter approaches!!!!
-Scott Pecoriello
